How in the non-existent hell am I going to categorize the ’special’ sound that Jon ‘J.S.’ Clayden and his fellow pitchshifters have yet again unleashed upon the masses in their 2000 release “Deviant”? Lesa Pence got it right when he said: “Perhaps the stores should just create a section called ‘Pitchshifter’ and make their lives easier.”
Quasi-complex sound/noise arrangements + guitar effects + whiny vocals/lyrics != good music.
Arise began as a band playing covers of Sepultura, Machinehead and Panthera. I’m pleased to report that they have moved quite a way from their musical roots. Their second full-length “Kings of the Cloned Generation” is melodic death/thrash metal reminiscent of fellow Swedes At the Gates and The Crown. In my mind it is an improvement upon Arise’s debut, and has a much tighter sound as well as a clearer production, with aggressive riffs and catchy underlying melodies combined with thrashy drumming and not too over-the-top growling vocals. The growling isn’t as interesting as that of At the Gates, nor are the melodies as beautiful, but opening track “Strangled Love” and “Stains of Blood” come close.
Dutch four-man crew Lahar play crunchy doom metal in best Neurosis tradition, with ragingly “go-tell-’em”, throaty vocals combined with some speedy riffage and pounding drums. Overall a solid three-track demo, and although perhaps not such a terribly innovative piece of work, it is one which certainly shows promise and room for development. I’m curious to see where Lahar will go from here, and look forwards to hearing their debut full-length.
The third studio release of Santa Cruz-based Estradaspehere, “Quadropus”, kicks off with a whopping four minutes of frenzied Eastern European gypsy-rock, then just sort of fizzles out about half-way through the album after some otherwise quite crazy, chaotic Mr. Bungleish tracks. Ironically, what probably makes this album so unique is also what ultimately causes its downfall - there’s little to no continuity in terms of atmosphere or style throughout much of it; instead the band choose to jump wildly from style to style with seemingly no regard for its impact on the listening experience as a whole. One minute they’re playing 1950s rock & roll, in another it’s brutal death metal, and this makes the whole thing sound sloppy, effectively ruining any chance of building up an overall, cozy sound picture for listeners to follow along with. Thumbs up for an attempt at originality by just playing lots of different genres, and to the actual technical abilities of the band members to master such diverse genres skillfully, but a little more fusing and album conceptualisation would be greatly appreciated.
“By ‘Forever Changes’ � when I did that album, I thought I was going to die at that particular time, so those were my last words. I was 26. I’d always had this thing about when I was going to die, man, or physically deteriorate, and I thought it would be about 26…something like that. I just had a funny feeling.” � Arthur Lee
You can’t go wrong with a record from the band which describes itself as playing “horny and punky secret agent brass music” and “kosher-kebab jazz”. Finnish Alamaailman Vasarat’s (that’s “The Hammers of the Underworld” to you!) debut album “Vasaraasia” is an insane mixture of ethnicky flavoured world music and distorted polka, raging pump organs and wild, untamed drumming. The whole thing has a rather brooding quality, building itself up slowly to a frenzy of energetic madness, deep, crunchy cellos working together with oriental sax and trombone keys, jazz drumming working together with tangoing brass instruments and, indeed, all sorts of other crazy stuff. There’s even some metal riffage strewn about for good measure, such as on the thrashing “Asuntovelka” although you shouldn’t be fooled to believe that it’s an electric guitar making its appearance in the midst of all this acoustic goodness - that’s a heavily distorted cello. Clearly, this is acoustic music that can rock!
This isn’t bad at all. Letchworth, England-based black metallers Niroth have put together the three-track “Iconoclasm” demo, a showcase of their “old school” style reminiscent of the original Norwegian groups haunting the scene in the early-to-mid 90s. As most classic black metal should be, “Iconoclasm” is full of truly bone-chilling, darkly atmospheric stuff with gut-wrenching growling and rip-’em-apart riffage, such as in the mouthfull opener “Mysterium Daemoniarchon”. Nothing particularly innovative really, but then again, not bad at all.
Does the world really need another power metal band? I guess not, since Circle II Circle broke up shortly after their first release over “business differences”. In any event, CIIC was the new project of ex-Savatage vocalist Zak Stevens, and their debut “Watching in Silence” is…well, it’s not exactly the most original debut of 2003, to put it that way.
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Finnish Thyrane have departed almost entirely from their past sound, creating instead an industrial black metal album with futuristic undertones. This will annoy the purists, but in my opinion it was not an unwise decision at all. Crunchy, thrashy riffs chug along with keyboards played in the same style as cheesy Bal Sagoth, making “Hypnotic” an interesting release indeed. If anything points should be awarded for daring originality.
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